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BioWare Has Neverwinter Publisher
Urthpaw writes: "BioWare (maker of the Baldur's Gate series of games, among others)'s D&D-based 3D, multiplayer uber-RPG, Neverwinter Nights, who's future has been recently cast into doubt by some legal trouble will be released, after all. It is currently scheduled for "Early 2002" release, on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. The press release is here."
Hmm. Have you played bioware's games? Have you read about Neverwinter Nights?
I don't consider BG I or II particuarly liniar, there's plenty of optional mini quests, and some others you can just ignore and explore onward..
Neverwinter nights is going to be interesting, as it's being relased as a game, but also as a engine for people to make their own campains for it. Some will be bad, but some will be good.
The Baldurs Gate series is overflowing with content. The very storyline is shaped by your character (the answers to the questions you are asked, your alignment, your character's class). How is that linear? Granted, there are usually only 2 endings, but how you get there is pretty much up to you.
Baldurs Gate 2 was an even bigger addition to the Baldurs Gate series, with a huge map of places to go, extended (and interesting!) storyline that never seems to end. I can honestly say that I haven't enjoyed another PC RPG as much as I've enjoyed playing through the Baldurs Gate world.
Last, Baldurs Gate 2 has probably well over a 500 individual npcs, all with their own likes and dislikes.
Combine all of that with the beautifully rendered maps, well voiced (and amusing!) dialog, and very easy to use interface, and you will see that Bioware is an industry leader for a reason.
-- Dan
The plan has always been and still is to release all 3 versions in the same box. What has fallen through unfortunately is the Linux and Mac version of the toolset - that will be Windows only.
The actual game however will be for all 3 systems, and in the same box.
uXs
What our ancestors would really think, if they were alive today, is: Why is it so dark in here? (Terry Pratchett)
Is it me or have PC RPG's really gone downhill?
Planescape: Torment is what you're after.
Fallout, Fallout 2, & All of the Baldurs gate series are good too.
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
I see your point, though BGI & II have helped lately as someone mentioned, but technically you're off topic. Pretty much the entire point of NWN is to create and or participate in user created worlds that will be differentiated mainly by the stories they present. After all, they will all be working with same basic building blocks as far as graphics, sounds, etc. (Last I read anyway) Most will surely suck, some will be beautiful but shallow, and a very few will attract the core players that will make them really shine. Hopefully! :)
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
I'd much rather see things go the way Serious Sam has, releasing smaller "episodes" that are half the price of other games. I'd like to for once start a game and be able to finish it in a reasonable amount of time (20-30 hours), while the developer cranks out more expansion packs and improvements. It seems like this would be much better for developers too, as they could drastically reduce their time to market.
The only certainty is entropy.
It's just you. The Baldur's Gate series is old school. There are several gating points, but you're more or less free to play it any way you like. Good, bad, indifferent, press on or seek out the sub-quests, chat to the NPC's, whatever. There's a lot in there, and the content is as important as the presentation.
Maybe you should give them a try. You should be able to get Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 on budget or in a multipack by now. If you're in any doubt about the depth or care put into them, ponder the pantaloons (spoiler).
Yes, Ultima was wonderful, but so is Baldur's Gate. And Ultima never made me actually shout out loud: "What the...? Is one of my own party stabbing me in the back? He is! Stop it! Stop stabbing me in the back! Bad dwarf! Bad! Aaaaagh!".
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If you want to make sure that, if you buy it for Linux it is registered AS a linux version, please do one of the following:
REMEMBER to send in your registration card and tick the Linux box (or as is more likely add on a Linux box because they forgot to put one on
Buy it from a Linux retailer that has pledged to report all sales of the game to the publisher AS Linux sales. We at Tux Games are doing this, and you can preorder here.
Please do not forget to do one of these things, or the vast majority of Linux sales will just be written off as windows sales, and that will NOT help to get us the greater recognition by game developers that we all need.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
It seems that, as technology increase, RPG's are becoming more and more linear. They look like a beautifully rendered movie where I get to play through a few fight scenes and maybe choose from 1 of 3 possible endings.
That's because they're mostly made by Japanese companies. Japanese gamers like linear stories. One of my coworkers (I live in Japan) said he didn't like the Ultimas because he "didn't know what he was supposed to do."
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
And if you would like to add another 30 or so hours to BG2, go to www.teambg.com. They have the best (and only that I know of) Mods for BG1 & BG2, and a resonably full set of editor so that you can make your own. They also have a lot of info on editing Planescape: Torment & Icewind Dale.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Cool, Bob and Doug Mackenzie do dungeons and dragons, with cameo by Red Green.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
How old are you? Classic RPGs seem to me to be more fun because I was a kid when they were around.
I remember that Might and Magic I seemed really amazing. It seemed big, in terms of land area. It seemed real. I remember getting out of the first town in MMI and thinking - god damn, there's a world in here.
Well, clouds of Xeen (MM V?), even though it was a lot bigger, seemed smaller. With the newer Ultimas, they seem smaller because the outside world is on the same scale as the cities. This is a problem for me because it interferes with my suspension of disbelief. It makes the world less abstract, but also less real, because the whole Continent is only the size of Monte Carlo.
As far as non linear plots go, Wizardry 8 is pretty good. The plot could be more convuluted, but there are a fair number of sidequests and adequate NPCs - there aren't 200 NPCs, but each NPC responds realistically to unimportant questions they ought to know the answers to, which is important for suspension of disbelief. Might and Magic never had NPCs or a plot, and has continued in that vein pretty faithfully.
If you're talking about Final Fantasy - yeah, FF II had more / more interesting side quests than these latest four. FF X, while gorgeous, is a movie.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Arcanum is a perfect example of a great non-linear game with a great overarching storyline AND plenty of room to do your own thing. It doesn't suffer from the open-ended chaos of Daggerfall, and doesn't suffer from the hand-holding linear nature of games such as the FF series. It's even more open-ended than the aforementioned Ultima VI. But I'm not surpised by that. Most Black Isle games have been open ended, such as the masterpieces Fallout 1 and 2. Many of the great minds behind the Fallout series left Black Isle, and ended up together working on Arcanum. I was doubtful of the gaming industry hype around 'the team from Fallout makes a new RPG'... visions of Daikatana flashed in my head. But I was pleasantly suprised.
What I'm most impressed with, regarding Neverwinter Nights, is the ability to create your own world and leave it running on a server. Graphical MUD anyone? With a well-scripted huge world built by a group of friends, they can create their own MMORPG.